Asics Gel Saiun 'Electric Blue'
Colorway: Electric Blue/White · Style code: 1011B400-400 · Release date: February 6, 2023 · Price: $197 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Asics Gel Saiun 'Black Pure Gold' (1011B400-001) · ASICS Gel Saiun 'Black Pure Silver' (1011B400-002) · Asics Gel Saiun 'Safety Yellow' (1011B400-750)
Saiun is a Japanese word for coloured clouds: the effect where sunlight refracting through high cloud throws bands of colour across the sky, read traditionally as a good omen and gone within minutes. Asics has drawn on that kind of naming for years, and here it attaches to a straightforward road shoe rather than to anything exotic. The build is conventional and sensibly made: a mesh upper with polyurethane overlays holding the foot in place, mesh underlays for airflow, and Gel units at both the heel and the forefoot to blunt impact at each end of the stride. It is aimed at regular training rather than at racing or at long-distance comfort, which places it in the crowded middle of the line where shoes get judged on how long they last rather than on how they feel in the first mile. This version runs electric blue over a white sole, released in early 2023.